Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Writer Guide: Free Ebook Edition
Writer Guide: Free Ebook Edition
Second edition
March 2010
Updated for V3.2
Authors
Jean Hollis Weber Michele Zarri
Magnus Adielsson Agnes Belzunce
Ken Byars Bruce Byfield
Daniel Carrera Dick Detwiler
Laurent Duperval Martin Fox
Katharina Greif Tara Hess
Peter Hillier-Brook Lou Iorio
John Kane Stefan A. Keel
Michael Kotsarinis Sigrid Kronenberger
Peter Kupfer Ian Laurenson
Alan Madden Paul Miller
Vincenzo Ponzi Scott Rhoades
Carol Roberts Iain Roberts
Gary Schnabl Robert Scott
Janet M. Swisher Barbara M. Tobias
Catherine Waterman Bob Wickham
Claire Wood Linda Worthington
Feedback
Please direct any comments or suggestions about this document to:
authors@documentation.openoffice.org
Starting Writer
If you are reading this document in OpenOffice.org, you already know
how to start Writer. However, if this is a printed version or a PDF
version, you may not know how to start Writer. So let’s look at three
ways to do that:
• From the system menu
• From an existing document
• From the command line
There is more than one way to start Writer from the command line,
depending on whether you have installed a customized version or the
standard download from the OOo web site.
If you installed using the download on the OOo web site, you can start
Writer by typing at the command line:
soffice -writer
or
swriter
Writer will start and create a new document.
To see a list of options you can use when starting Writer at the
command line, type:
soffice -?
Below is a list of some of the more popular options.
Toolbars
Writer has several types of toolbars: docked, floating, and tear-off.
Docked toolbars can be moved to different locations or made to float,
and floating toolbars can be docked.
The top docked toolbar (default position) is called the Standard
toolbar. The Standard toolbar is consistent across the OpenOffice.org
applications (Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress, Base).
The second toolbar across the top (default location) is the Formatting
toolbar. It is a context-sensitive bar that shows the relevant tools in
response to the cursor’s current position or selection. For example,
when the cursor is on a graphic, the Formatting bar provides tools for
formatting graphics; when the cursor is in text, the tools are for
formatting text.
Moving toolbars
To move a docked toolbar, place the mouse pointer over the toolbar
handle, hold down the left mouse button, drag the toolbar to the new
location, and then release the mouse button (Figure 4).
To move a floating toolbar, click on its title bar and drag it to a new
location (Figure 5).
Floating toolbars
Writer includes several additional context-sensitive toolbars, whose
defaults appear as floating toolbars in response to the cursor’s current
position or selection. For example, when the cursor is in a table, a
floating Table toolbar appears, and when the cursor is in a numbered
or bullet list, the Bullets and Numbering toolbar appears. You can dock
these toolbars to the top, bottom, or side of the window, if you wish
(see “Moving toolbars” on page 17).
Customizing toolbars
You can customize toolbars in several ways, including choosing which
icons are visible and locking the position of a docked toolbar. You can
also add icons and create new toolbars, as described in Appendix B.
To access a toolbar’s customization options, use the down-arrow at the
end of the toolbar or on its title bar (see Figure 7).
Rulers
To show or hide rulers, choose View > Ruler. To enable the vertical
ruler, choose Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer > View and
select Vertical ruler.
Status bar
The Writer status bar provides information about the document and
convenient ways to quickly change some document features. From left
to right, the fields are as follows.
Page number
Shows the current page number, the sequence number of the
current page (if different), and the total number of pages in the
document. For example, if you restarted page numbering at 1 on the
third page, its page number is 1 and its sequence number is 3.
Insert mode
Click to toggle between Insert and Overwrite modes when typing.
Selection mode
Click to toggle between STD (Standard), EXT (Extend), ADD (Add)
and BLK (Block) selection. EXT is an alternative to Shift+click when
selecting text. See Chapter 3 (Working with Text) for more
information about ADD and BLK.
Unsaved changes
An asterisk (*) appears here if changes to the document have not
been saved.
View layout
Click an icon to change between single page, side-by-side, and book
layout views (Figure 11). You can edit the document in any view.
Zoom
To change the view magnification, drag the Zoom slider, or click on
the + and – signs, or right-click on the zoom level percent to pop up
a list of magnification values from which to choose. Zoom interacts
the List Box On/Off icon . Click this icon again to show the list.
Click the + sign by any of the lists to display the contents of the list.
Table 1 summarizes the functions of the icons at the top of the
Navigator.
Jumps between the text area and the header or footer area (if the
page has them).
Jumps between a footnote anchor and the corresponding footnote
text.
Choose the number of heading levels to be shown.
Setting reminders
One of the little known features of Writer which you may find quite
useful is the possibility of jumping between reminders. Reminders let
you mark places in your document that you want to return to later on,
Insert As Hyperlink
Creates a hyperlink when you drag and drop an item into the
current document.
Insert As Link
Inserts the selected item as a link where you drag and drop in the
current document. Text is inserted as protected sections. However,
you cannot create links for graphics, OLE objects, references, or
indexes using this method.
Insert As Copy
Inserts a copy of the selected item where you drag and drop in the
current document. You cannot drag and drop copies of graphics,
OLE objects, or indexes.
Saving a document
To save a new document in Writer, do one of the following:
• Press Control+S.
• Select File > Save.
• Click the Save button on the main toolbar.
When the Save As dialog box appears, enter the file name and verify
the file type (if applicable).
To save an open document with the current file name, choose File >
Save. This will overwrite the last saved state of the file.
Password protection
To protect an entire document from being viewable without a
password, use the option on the Save As dialog box to enter a
password. This option is only available for files saved in
OpenDocument formats or the older OpenOffice.org 1.x formats.
1) On the Save As dialog box, select the Save with password
option, and then click Save. You will receive a prompt:
Getting help
Writer provides several forms of help. In addition to a full Help file
(reached by pressing F1 or choosing Help > OpenOffice.org Help
from the menu bar), you can choose whether to activate tooltips,
extended tips, and the Help Agent from Tools > Options >
OpenOffice.org > General.
Placing the mouse pointer over any of the icons displays a small box,
called a tooltip. It gives a brief explanation of the icon’s function. For a
more detailed explanation, select Help > What’s This? and hold the
Click the small triangle to the right of the Undo icon to get a list of all
the changes that can be undone (Figure 20). You can select multiple
changes and undo them at the same time.
Closing a document
To close a document, click File > Close.
You can also close a document by clicking on the Close icon on the
document window. In Windows XP, this button looks like the X in the
red box shown in Figure 21.
Caution Not saving your document could result in the loss of recently
made changes, or worse still, your entire file.
Closing Writer
To close Writer completely, click File > Exit, or close the last open
document as described in “Closing a document” on page 34.
If all the documents have been saved, Writer closes immediately. If any
documents have been modified but not saved, a warning message
appears. Follow the procedure in “Closing a document” to save or
discard your changes.
The Back button has the same effect on all pages of the
Note Options dialog box. It resets options to the values that were in
place when you opened OOo.
General options
The options on the OpenOffice.org – General page are described below.
Help - Tips
When Tips is active, one or two words will appear when you hold the
mouse pointer over an icon or field, without clicking.
Help - Extended tips
When Extended tips is active, a brief description of the function of a
particular icon or menu command or a field on a dialog box appears
when you hold the mouse pointer over that item.
Open/Save dialogs
To use the standard Open and Save dialog boxes for your operating
system, deselect the Use OpenOffice.org dialogs option. When
this option is selected, the Open and Save dialog boxes supplied with
OpenOffice.org will be used. This book uses the OOo Open and Save
dialog boxes in illustrations.
Document status
If this option is selected, then the next time you close the document
after printing, the print date is recorded in the document properties
as a change and you will be prompted to save the document again,
even if you did not make any other changes.
Year (two digits)
Specifies how two-digit years are interpreted. For example, if the
two-digit year is set to 1930, and you enter a date of 1/1/30 or later
into your document, the date is interpreted as 1/1/1930 or later. An
“earlier” date is interpreted as being in the following century; that
is, 1/1/20 is interpreted as 1/1/2020.
View options
The options on the OpenOffice.org – View page (Figure 26) affect the
way the document window looks and behaves. Some of these options
are described below. Set them to suit your personal preferences.
Figure 27: Font list (Left) showing preview; (Right) without preview
Font Lists - Show font history
Causes the last five fonts you have assigned to the current document
are displayed at the top of the font list.
Graphics output – Use hardware acceleration
Directly accesses hardware features of the graphical display adapter
to improve the screen display. Not supported on all operating
systems and OOo distributions.
Graphics output – Use anti-aliasing
Enables and disables anti-aliasing, which makes the display of most
graphical objects look smoother and with fewer artifacts. Not
supported on all operating systems and OOo distributions.
Mouse positioning
Specifies if and how the mouse pointer will be positioned in newly
opened dialog boxes.
Middle mouse button
Defines the function of the middle mouse button.
• Automatic scrolling – dragging while pressing the middle
mouse button shifts the view.
• Paste clipboard – pressing the middle mouse button inserts the
contents of the “Selection clipboard” at the cursor position.
The “Selection clipboard” is independent of the normal clipboard
Print options
On the OpenOffice.org – Print page, set the print options to suit your
default printer and your most common printing method.
In the Printer warnings section near the bottom of the page, you can
choose whether to be warned if the paper size or orientation specified
in your document does not match the paper size or orientation
available for your printer. Having these warnings turned on can be
quite helpful, particularly if you work with documents produced by
people in other countries where the standard paper size is different
from yours.
Path options
On the OpenOffice.org – Paths page, you can change the location of
files associated with, or used by, OOo to suit your working situation. In
a Windows system, for example, you might want to store documents by
default somewhere other than My Documents.
To make changes, select an item in the list shown in Figure 29 and
click Edit. On the Select Paths dialog (not shown), add or delete
folders as required, and then click OK to return to the Options dialog.
Note that many items can have at least two paths listed: one to a
shared folder (which might be on a network) and one to a user-specific
folder (normally on the user’s personal computer).
Font options
You can define replacements for any fonts that might appear in your
documents. If you receive from someone else a document containing
fonts that you do not have on your system, OOo will substitute fonts for
those it does not find. You might prefer to specify a different font from
the one the program chooses.
On the OpenOffice.org – Fonts page (Figure 32):
1) Select Apply Replacement Table option.
2) Select or type the name of the font to be replaced in the Font box.
(If you do not have this font on your system, it will not appear in
the drop-down list in this box, so you need to type it in.)
Security options
Use the OpenOffice.org – Security page (Figure 33) to choose security
options for saving documents and for opening documents that contain
macros.
Appearance options
Writing, editing, and (especially) page layout are often easier when you
can see the page margins (text boundaries), the boundaries of tables
and sections, grid lines, and other features. In addition, you might
prefer to use colors that are different from OOo’s defaults for such
items as note indicators or field shadings.
On the OpenOffice.org – Appearance page (Figure 35), you can specify
which items are visible and the colors used to display various items.
• To show or hide items such as text boundaries, select or deselect
them.
• To change the default colors for items, click the down-arrow in
the Color setting column by the name of the item and select a
color from the pop-up box.
• To save your color changes as a color scheme, type a name in the
Scheme box and click Save.
Font sizes
Use these fields to define the respective font sizes for the HTML
<font size=1> to <font size=7> tags, if they are used in the HTML
pages. (Many pages no longer use these tags.)
Import - Use 'English (USA)' locale for numbers
When importing numbers from an HTML page, the decimal and
thousands separator characters differ according to the locale of the
HTML page. The clipboard, however, contains no information about
the locale. If this option is not selected, numbers will be interpreted
according to the Language - Locale setting in Tools > Options >
Language Settings > Languages (see page 66). If this option is
selected, numbers will be interpreted as for the English (USA)
locale.
Import - Import unknown HTML tags as fields
Select this option if you want tags that are not recognized by OOo to
be imported as fields. For an opening tag, an HTML_ON field will be
created with the value of the tag name. For a closing tag, an
HTML_OFF will be created. These fields will be converted to tags in
the HTML export.
General options
The choices on the OpenOffice.org Writer – General page affect the
updating of links and fields, the units used for rulers and other
measurements, and the default tab stop positions.
View options
Two pages of options set the defaults for viewing Writer documents:
View (described here) and Formatting Aids (described below).
If the items on the OpenOffice.org Writer - View page are not self-
explanatory, you can easily test their effects in a blank document.
This is a good page to check if, for example, you cannot see graphics
on the screen or you see field codes instead of the text or numbers you
are expecting.
Direct cursor lets you enter text, images, tables, frames, and
other objects in any blank area in your document. Writer inserts
blank paragraphs and tabs to position the text or objects.
Note
This feature is incompatible with rigorous use of styles and can
lead to many formatting oddities, so it should be avoided by
professional writers.
Grid options
Specifying “snap to grid” can be very helpful when you are trying to
align several objects such as graphics or tables.
On the OpenOffice.org Writer – Grid page, you can choose whether to
enable this feature and what grid intervals to use. If the grid intervals
(subdivisions) are too large, you may find that you do not have enough
control in placing the objects.
Default fonts
The default fonts specified on the OpenOffice.org Writer – Basic Fonts
(Western) page apply to both Writer documents and HTML (Web)
documents.
Print options
On the OpenOffice.org Writer – Print page (Figure 47), you can choose
which items are printed with the document by default. These options
are in addition to those on the OpenOffice.org – Print page (Figure 28).
Some considerations:
• When you are working on drafts and you want to save printer ink
or toner, you might want to deselect some of the items in the
Contents section.
• The Print black selection causes color text (but not graphics) to
print as black on a color printer; on a black-and-white printer, this
option causes color text to print as solid black instead of shades
of grey (dithered).
• The Print black option has a different effect to the Convert
colors to greyscale on the Options – OpenOffice.org – Print page
(Figure 23), which prints all graphics as greyscale on color
printers. (On black-and-white printers, color in graphics normally
prints as greyscale.)
Compatibility options
Do you need to import Microsoft Word documents into OOo Writer? If
so, you might want to select some or all of the settings on the
OpenOffice.org Writer – Compatibility page. If you are not sure about
the effects of these settings, leave them as the defaults provided by
OOo. For information about the settings not described below, see the
Help.
AutoCaption options
Do you want OOo to automatically insert captions for tables, pictures,
frames, and OLE objects that have been inserted in a Writer
document?
You may not always want captions for every table, for example,
if you use tables for layout as well as for tables of data. You
Note can always add captions to individual tables, graphics, or other
objects (right-click > Caption).
Selecting text
Before you can do anything with text, you need to select it. Selecting
text in Writer is similar to selecting anything in other applications.
In addition to selecting blocks of text, you can select items that are not
consecutive, and columns (vertical blocks) of text.
Figure 57: Selecting items that are not next to each other
If you click Find All, Writer selects all instances of the search
Tip text in the document. Similarly, if you click Replace All
button, Writer replaces all matches.
Use Replace All with caution; otherwise, you may end up with
Caution some hilarious (and highly embarrassing) mistakes. A mistake
with Replace All might require a manual, word-by-word
search to fix, if not discovered in time to undo.
Unless you plan to search for other text using those same
attributes, click No Format to remove the attributes after
Tip completing your search. If you forget to do this, you may
wonder why your next search fails to find words you know are
in the document.
Figure 61: The Special Characters dialog box, where you can
insert special characters
3) Select the characters (from any font or mixture of fonts) you wish
to insert, in order; then click OK. The selected characters are
shown in the lower left of the dialog box. As you select each
character, it is shown on the lower right, along with the numerical
code for that character.
Linux
Hold down the Compose key and type two hyphens and a period for
an en dash, or three hyphens for an em dash. The dash appears
when you release the Compose key.
The key that operates as a Compose key varies with the Linux
Tip distribution. It is usually one of the Alt or Win keys, but may be
another key, and should be user-selectable.
Mac OS X
Hold down the Option (Alt) key and type a hyphen for an en dash.
For an em dash, the combination is Shift+Option+Hyphen.
Formatting paragraphs
You can apply many formats to paragraphs using the buttons on the
Formatting toolbar. Figure 62 shows the Formatting toolbar as a
floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for paragraph
formatting.
Figure 64: Four choices for the last line of a justified paragraph
These options are controlled in the Alignment page of the Format >
Paragraph dialog box (see Figure 65).
Any changes to the default tab setting will affect the existing
Note default tab stops in any document you open afterward, as well
as tab stops you insert after making the change.
To set the measurement unit and the spacing of default tab stop
intervals, go to Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org Writer >
General.
You can also set or change the measurement unit for rulers in the
current document by right-clicking on the ruler to open a list of units,
as shown in Figure 68. Click on one of them to change the ruler to that
unit. The selected setting applies only to that ruler.
Formatting characters
You can apply many formats to characters using the buttons on the
Formatting toolbar. Figure 69 shows the Formatting toolbar as a
floating toolbar, customized to show only the buttons for character
formatting.
Autoformatting
Writer can be set to automatically format parts of a document
according to the choices made on the Options page of the AutoCorrect
dialog box (Tools > AutoCorrect Options). See Figure 70.
While Typing
Automatically formats the document while you type.
Apply
Automatically formats the document.
Apply and Edit Changes
Automatically formats the file and then opens a dialog box where
you can accept or reject the changes.
AutoCorrect Options
Opens the AutoCorrect dialog (Figure 70).
If you create a nested list using the predefined styles, all the levels of
the list (up to 10) apply the same numbering (or bullet), however in
many circumstances you will want to use a combination of numbering
formats and bullets when creating a nested lists. Such lists with a
mixture of numbering formats and bullets can be easily configured as
described in the following example. Additional information on lists and
in particular the technique to create your own list style is described in
Chapter 7 (Working with Styles).
When creating nested lists, one option is to enter all the list
paragraphs first and apply the levels afterwards.
You can use keyboard shortcuts to move paragraphs up or
down the outline levels. Place the cursor at the beginning of
the numbered paragraph and press:
Tip
Tab Down a level
Shift+Tab Up a level
To insert a tab stop at the beginning of a numbered paragraph
(that is, after the number but before the text), press
Control+Tab.
Inserting footnotes/endnotes
To insert a footnote or an endnote, put the cursor where you want the
footnote/endnote marker to appear. Then select Insert > Footnote
from the menu bar or click the Insert Footnote Directly or Insert
Endnote Directly icon on the Insert toolbar.
Figure 76: Using the Insert Footnote Directly icon on the toolbar
A footnote (or endnote) marker is inserted in the text, and the cursor is
relocated to the footnote area at the bottom of the page (or to the
endnote area at the end of the document). Type the footnote or
endnote content in this area.
If you use Insert > Footnote, the Insert Footnote dialog box is
displayed. Here you can choose whether to use the automatic
numbering sequence specified in the footnote settings and whether to
insert the item as a footnote or an endnote.
For selection
Applies a specified language to the selected text (the selection can
be as short as a few characters or as long as several paragraphs).
For paragraph
Select this option to apply the specified language to the paragraph
where the cursor is located.
For all text
Select this option to apply the specified language to all the
document.
Another way to change the language of a whole document is to use
Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages. In the Default
languages for documents section, you can choose a different language
for all the text.
The spelling checker works only for those languages in the list which
have the symbol next to them. If you do not see this symbol next to
your preferred language, you can install the dictionary using Tools >
Languages > More dictionaries online.
The language used for checking spelling is also shown in the status
bar, next to the page style in use.
Hyphenating words
You have several choices regarding hyphenation: let Writer do it
automatically (using its hyphenation dictionaries), insert conditional
hyphens manually where necessary, or don’t hyphenate at all. Each
choice has its pros and cons.
Automatic hyphenation
To turn automatic hyphenation of words on or off:
1) Press F11 to open the Styles and Formatting window (Figure 83).
On the Paragraph Styles page, right-click on Default and select
Modify.
2) On the Paragraph Style dialog box, select the Text Flow tab.
You can also set hyphenation choices through Tools > Options >
Language Settings > Writing Aids. In Options, near the bottom of
the dialog box, scroll down to find the hyphenation settings (see
Figure 85).
Manual hyphenation
To manually hyphenate words, do not use a normal hyphen, which will
remain visible even if the word is no longer at the end of a line when
you add or delete text or change margins or font size. Instead, use a
conditional hyphen, which is visible only when required.
To insert a conditional hyphen inside a word, click where you want the
hyphen to appear and press Control+hyphen. The word will be
hyphenated at this position when it is at the end of the line, even if
automatic hyphenation for this paragraph is switched off.
Using AutoText
AutoText allows you to assign text, tables, graphics, and other items to
a key combination. For example, rather than typing “Senior
Management” every time you use that phrase, you just have to type
“sm” and press F3. You can also save graphics or tables (such as a
formatted Tip like the one on this page) as AutoText.
To assign some text to an AutoText shortcut:
1) Type the text into your document.
2) Select the text.
3) Go to Edit > AutoText (or press Control+F3).
4) Enter a name for your shortcut. Writer will suggest a one-letter
shortcut, which you can change.
5) Click the AutoText button on the right of the AutoText dialog box
and select New (text only) from the menu.
6) Click Close to return to your document.
To insert AutoText, type the shortcut and press F3.
Line numbering
Line numbering puts line numbers in the margin. The line numbers are
displayed on screen and are printed. Figure 88 shows an example with
numbering on every line.
Click Tools > Line Numbering and select the Show numbering
option in the top left corner. Then click OK.
Recording changes
See Chapter 2 (Setting up Writer) for instructions on setting up how
your changes will be displayed.
1) To begin tracking (recording) changes, click Edit > Changes >
Record. To show or hide the display of changes, click Edit >
Changes > Show.
Figure 91: The List tab of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box
To show only the changes of certain people or only the changes on
specific days or various other restrictions, use the Filter page (Figure
92) on the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box. After specifying the
filter criteria, return to the List page to see those changes that meet
your criteria.
Figure 92: The Filter page of the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box
Comparing documents
Sometimes reviewers may forget to record the changes they make.
This is not a problem with Writer because you can find the changes if
you compare documents.
In order to compare documents, you need to have the original
document and the one that is edited. To compare them:
1) Open the edited document. Select Edit > Compare Document.
2) The Insert dialog box appears. Select the original document and
click Insert.
Writer finds and marks the changes and displays the Accept or Reject
Changes dialog box. From this point, you can go through and accept or
reject changes procedure as described earlier.
Using cross-references
To ensure that references update if you reword a heading, caption, or
other linked item, use automatic cross-references. See “Using
automatic cross-references” in Chapter 14 (Working with Fields) for
details.
Using bookmarks
Bookmarks are listed in the Navigator and can be accessed directly
from there with a single mouse click. In HTML documents, bookmarks
are converted to anchors that you can jump to by hyperlink. For more
Using hyperlinks
When you type text (such as a website addresses or URL) that can be
used as a hyperlink, and then press the spacebar or the Enter key,
Writer automatically creates the hyperlink and applies formatting to
the text (usually a color and underlining).
If this does not happen, you can enable this feature using Tools >
AutoCorrect > Options and selecting the URL Recognition option.
If you do not want Writer to convert a specific URL to a hyperlink,
choose Edit > Undo Insert from the menu bar or press Control+Z
immediately after the formatting has been applied.
You can also insert hyperlinks using the Navigator and the Hyperlink
dialog, and you can modify all hyperlinks using the Hyperlink dialog, as
described in this section.
Editing hyperlinks
To edit a hyperlink, click anywhere in the link text and then open the
Hyperlink dialog box by clicking the Hyperlink icon on the Standard
toolbar or choosing Edit > Hyperlink from the menu bar. Make your
changes and click Apply. If you need to edit several hyperlinks, you
can leave the Hyperlink dialog box open until you have edited all of
them. Be sure to click Apply after each one. When you are finished,
click Close.
The standard (default) behavior for activating hyperlinks within OOo is
to use Ctrl+click. This behavior can be changed in Tools > Options >
OpenOffice.org > Security > Options, by deselecting the option
Ctrl-click required to follow hyperlinks. If clicking in your links
activates them, check that page to see if the option has been
deselected.
To change the color of hyperlinks, go to Tools > Options >
OpenOffice.org > Appearance, scroll to Unvisited links and/or
Visited links, select those options, pick the new colors and click OK.
Caution: this will change the color for all hyperlinks in all components
of OpenOffice.org—this may not be what you want.
In Writer and Calc (but not Draw or Impress), you can also change the
Internet link character style or define and apply new styles to selected
links.
Figure 97: Letterhead with different page styles for first and
following pages
As an example, we can use the First Page and Default page styles that
come with Writer. Figure 98 shows what we want to happen: the first
page is to be followed by the default page, and all the following pages
are to be in the Default page style.
Figure 99: Setting the Next Style property for a page style
5) On the other pages of this dialog box, you can turn on or off the
header and footer for the first page and define other
characteristics, such as columns, a page border, or a page
background. For more information, see Chapter 7 (Working with
Styles).
6) Click OK to save the changes.
Figure 100: Naming the new style and setting the next
page style to Landscape
4) On the Page page of the Page Style dialog box (Figure 101), set
the Orientation to Landscape. The width and height attributes of
the page will automatically change.
5) Change the margins so that they correspond with the margins of
the portrait page. That is, the portrait top margin becomes the
landscape left margin, and so on.
If you change the margins using the rulers, the new margins
Note affect the page style and will be shown in the Page Style dialog
box the next time you open it.
To change margins using the Page Style dialog box (Figure 101):
1) Right-click anywhere on the page and select Page from the pop-
up menu.
2) On the Page page of the dialog box, type the required distances in
the Margins boxes.
Figure 106 shows the Columns dialog box for a selection. Notice that
the Apply to box on the right-hand side has Selection highlighted and
an extra option (Evenly distribute contents to all columns) appears
in the upper left-hand part of the dialog box.
Creating frames
You can create a frame in several ways, depending on your needs.
• Choose Insert > Frame) to create an empty frame. The Frame
dialog box (Figure 109) appears. You can click OK and come back
to customize it later, or you can set the frame’s characteristics at
this stage.
Anchoring frames
Using the Frame dialog box (or by right-clicking and pointing to
Anchor), you can anchor a frame to a page, paragraph, or character,
or you can anchor it as a character.
To Page
The frame keeps the same position in relation to the page margins.
It does not move as you add or delete text. This method is useful
when the frame does not need to be visually associated with a
particular piece of text. It is often used when producing newsletters
or other documents that are very layout-intensive. This method is
also used to center text on a page.
To Paragraph
The frame is associated with a paragraph and moves with the
paragraph. It may be placed in the margin or another location. This
method is useful as an alternative to a table for placing icons beside
paragraphs. It is also used to center text on a page in documents
which will be used in a master document (frames anchored to pages
will disappear from the master document).
Linking frames
You can link frames to each other even when they are on different
pages of a document. The contents will automatically flow from one to
the next. This technique is very useful when designing newsletters,
where articles may need to be continued on a different page.
Note You cannot link from a frame to more than one other frame.
Example of a In some cases you may want to put only one or two paragraphs in
sidehead the table itself and the rest of the text and graphics in ordinary
paragraphs (formatted to line up with the paragraphs in the
table) so that text and graphics will flow more easily from one
page to another when you add or delete material.
In other cases, you might put each paragraph in a separate row of
the table and allow the table to break between pages.
3) Right-click on the table and choose Table from the pop-up menu.
On the Columns page of the Table Format dialog box, make the
columns the required width.
4) On the Table page of the Table Format dialog box (Figure 117), in
the Spacing section, make the Above and Below values the same
as the Top and Bottom spacing you have defined for ordinary
paragraphs of text. Click OK to save your settings.
You may also want to turn off number recognition so that Writer will
not try to format numbers if you want them to be plain text. To turn
number recognition off:
1) Right-click in the table and then click Number Format on the
pop-up menu.
2) On the Number Format dialog box, make sure the Category is set
to Text. Click OK.
If you use this table format often, you may want to save it as
Tip AutoText, as described in Chapter 3 (Working with Text).
Select the table (not just the contents) to assign the shortcut.
Creating sections
To create a section:
1) Place the cursor at the point in your document where you want to
insert the new section. Or, select the text that you want to place
in the new section.
2) From the main menu, choose Insert > Section. The Insert
Section dialog box opens.
3) Click the Section tab, if it is not already displayed.
The Insert Section dialog box has five tabbed pages:
• Use the Section page to set the section’s attributes.
• Use the Columns page to format the section into columns.
• Use the Indents page to set indents in the right and left margins
of the section.
• Use the Background page to add color or a graphic to the
section’s background.
• Use the Footnotes/Endnotes page to customize the section’s
footnotes and endnotes.
Naming sections
Writer automatically enters a name for the current section in the top
box of the New section area. To change the name, select it and type
over it. The name is displayed in the Sections category of the
Navigator window. If you give your sections meaningful names, you can
navigate to them more easily.
Linking sections
You can insert the contents of another document into the current
section and then have Writer update the section whenever the other
document is updated. This is called linking the section to the other
document.
To link the current section to another document, follow these steps:
1) In the Link area, select the Link option.
Write-protecting sections
To write-protect the current section so that its contents cannot be
edited, select the Protect option in the Write protection area.
Password-protecting sections
To prevent others from editing the section’s attributes or format,
protect the section with a password, as follows:
1) Select the With password option. The Enter Password dialog box
opens.
2) Type a password in the Password field and then confirm the
password by typing it again in the Confirm field.
Hiding sections
You can hide the current section so that it will not be displayed on the
screen or printed. You can also specify conditions for hiding the
section. For example, you can hide the section only from certain users.
Customizing footnotes
If you want the current section’s footnotes to appear separately from
the other footnotes in the document, select the Collect at end of text
option in the Footnotes area.
Customizing endnotes
If you want the current section’s endnotes to appear at the end of the
section rather than at the end of the document, select the Collect at
end of section option in the Endnotes area.
To number the current section’s endnotes separately from the other
endnotes in the document, follow these steps:
1) In the Endnotes area, make sure that the Collect at end of
section option is selected.
2) Select the Restart numbering option.
3) If you want the section’s endnotes to start at a number other than
1, enter the desired starting number in the Start at spin box.
To edit the format of the section’s endnotes, follow these steps:
1) In the Endnotes area, make sure that the Collect at end of
section and Restart numbering options are selected.
2) Select the Custom format option.
3) From the drop-down list under and to the right of the Custom
format option, select a numbering format for the endnotes.
4) To add text to the selected numbering format, use the Before and
After fields, as shown above for footnotes (Figure 126).
Deleting sections
To delete the current section, click the Remove button.
Updating links
You can set Writer to update linked sections automatically, and you can
also update links manually.
3) The list in the Edit Links dialog box displays the names of all the
files that are linked to the current document. Click the file that
corresponds to the link that you want to update.
Depending on which option you choose, an area will appear at the top
or bottom of the page. In this area you can enter text and graphics that
will appear on every page.
You can define styles for headers and footers so that you can
quickly obtain a consistent formatting in case you use several
Tip page styles. Writer includes three predefined header styles and
three footer styles: generic ones, for left pages, and for right
pages. You can also add custom header and footer styles.
Figure 131: Measuring the location and size of the footer frame
Figure 133: Defining the size and position of the footer frame
Numbering pages
This section describes techniques to insert page numbers and related
information in a document. Some basic knowledge of page styles,
which are fully described in Chapters 6 and 7, may be needed to follow
some of the examples given.
Preliminaries: fields
OpenOffice.org uses fields to manage page numbers. To insert a page
number field, position the cursor where you want to insert the number
and choose Insert > Fields > Page Number. The page number
appears with a gray background. The gray background denotes a field.
1) Choose Insert > Footer > [page style] to activate the footer. (If
the page style is already selected in the Footer menu, point to it
and click OK in the OpenOffice.org 2.0 dialog box that appears.
Then point to that page style again to select it.)
2) The cursor is now in the footer. To insert the page number, choose
Insert > Fields > Page Number. The page number will be 1.
3) Click in the first paragraph in the text area or type a paragraph of
text.
4) Choose Format > Paragraph (or right-click and choose
Paragraph from the pop-up menu) to display the Paragraph
dialog box.
5) On the Text Flow page, in the Breaks section, select Insert and
select Page in the Type drop-down list. Select With Page Style
and the page style you are using for the first page of the
document.
6) The Page number field is now active. Type the page number you
want to start with. Click OK to close the Paragraph dialog box.
This change is also reflected on the status bar. The Page section of the
status bar now includes both the total page count and the entry of the
page number field.
If you do not know the total number of pages in advance, then one
approach is to create a bookmark on the last page and then insert a
cross reference to it.
To create a bookmark on the last page:
1) Go to the last page (Ctrl+End).
2) Choose Insert > Bookmark.
3) In the Insert Bookmark dialog box, type a name for the bookmark,
for example LastPage. Click OK.
Adding a border
To begin, select the frame, right-click, and choose Frame from the pop-
up menu. Choose the Borders tab.
Borders have three components: where they go, what they look like,
and how much space is left around them.
• Line arrangement specifies where the borders go. Writer provides
five default arrangements but you can just as easily click on the
line you want to customize in the User-defined area to get exactly
what you want. Each line can be individually formatted.
• Line specifies what the border looks like: the style and color.
There are a number of different styles and colors to choose from.
The Line Style and Color will apply to those borders highlighted
by a pair of black arrows in the User-defined map on the left hand
side of the dialog box.
• Spacing to contents specifies how much space to leave between
the border and the contents of the element. Spaces can be
specified to the left, right, above, and below. Check Synchronize
to have the same spacing for all four sides. This spacing is like a
padding and it is not factored in when calculating the text
measurements.
• Shadow style properties always apply to the whole element. A
shadow has three components: where it is, how far from the
element it is cast, and what color it is.
Quick printing
Click the Print File Directly icon to send the entire document to
the default printer defined for your computer.
You can change the action of the Print File Directly icon to
send the document to the printer defined for the document
Note instead of the default printer for the computer. Go to Tools >
Options > Load/Save > General and select the Load
printer settings with the document option.
Controlling printing
For more control over printing, use File > Print to display the Print
dialog box.
2) Click the Book Preview icon to display left and right pages in
their correct orientation.
view icon to open the Print dialog box (Figure 150). Choose
your options and click OK to print as usual.
4) To choose margins and other options for the printout, click the
Printing a brochure
You can print a document with two pages on each side of a sheet of
paper, arranged so that when the printed pages are folded in half, the
pages are in the correct order to form a booklet or brochure.
To print a brochure on a single-sided printer:
1) Plan your document so it will look good when printed half size
(choose appropriate margins, font sizes, and so on). Click File >
Print. In the Print dialog box (Figure 150), click Properties and
be sure the printer is set to the same orientation (portrait or
landscape) as specified in the page setup for your document.
(Usually the orientation does not matter, but it does for
brochures.)
2) Click Options. In the Pages section of the Printer Options dialog
box (Figure 151), choose Brochure and Right pages. Click OK
twice to print the first side of each page.
3) Flip the pages and put them back into the printer, in the correct
orientation to print on the blank side. You may need to
experiment a bit to find out what the correct arrangement is for
Printing envelopes
Printing envelopes involves two steps: setup and printing.
To set up an envelope to be printed by itself or with your document:
1) Click Insert > Envelope from the menu bar.
2) In the Envelope dialog box, start with the Envelope tab. Verify,
add, or edit the information in the Addressee and Sender boxes
(the “from” on the envelope).
To format the text of these blocks, click the Edit buttons to the
right. In the drop-down list you have two choices: Character and
Paragraph.
• In Character, you can choose Fonts (Sizes...), Fonts Effects
(Underlining, Color...), Position (Rotating/scaling...),
Hyperlink, Background and more.
• In Paragraph, you can choose Indents & Spacing, Alignment,
Text Flow, Tabs, Drop Caps, Borders and Backgrounds.
4) In the lower left of this page, choose the envelope format from the
drop-down list. The width and height of the selected envelope
then show in the boxes below the selected format. If you chose a
pre-existing format, just verify these sizes. If you chose User
defined in the Format list, then you can edit the sizes.
6) When you have finished formatting and are ready to print, click
either the New Doc or Insert button to finish. New Doc makes
only an envelope or starts a new document with the envelope.
Insert puts the envelope into your existing document as page 1.
To not proceed with this envelope, click Cancel or press the Esc
key. You can also click Reset to remove your changes and return
to the original settings when the dialog box opened.
When the Envelope dialog box closes, you are returned to your
document, which now has the envelope in the same file as the
document. Save this file before you do anything else.
To print the envelope:
1) Choose File > Print from the menu bar.
2) On the Print dialog box, under Print range, choose Pages and
type 1 in the box. Click OK to print.
3) Select the label stock in the Brand drop-down list. The types for
that brand then appear in the Type drop-down list. Select the size
and type of labels required. You can also select User in the Type
drop-down list and then make specific selections on the Format
page.
4) On the Format page, choose the pitch, sizes, margins, columns
and rows for user-defined labels, or just verify with a brand of
label stock you have loaded into the printer.
Exporting to PDF
OpenOffice.org can export documents to PDF (Portable Document
Format). This industry-standard file format for file viewing is ideal for
sending the file to someone else to view using Acrobat Reader or other
PDF viewers. Unlike exporting to other formats, PDF documents will
look exactly as the document appears on your screen. The only
limitation of PDF is that the recipient will not be able to edit the
document.
Range section
• All: Exports the entire document.
• Pages: To export a range of pages, use the format 3-6 (pages 3 to
6). To export single pages, use the format 7;9;11 (pages 7, 9, and
11). You can also export a combination of page ranges and single
pages, by using a format like 3-6;8;10;12.
• Selection: Exports whatever material is selected.
General section
• PDF/A-1: PDF/A is an ISO standard established in 2005 for long-
term preservation of documents, by embedding all the pieces
necessary for faithful reproduction (such as fonts) while
forbidding other elements (including forms, security, encryption,
and tagged PDF). If you select PDF/A-1, the forbidden elements
are greyed-out (not available). Because the fonts are embedded in
the PDF file, the document will appear as the author intended
even if the machine where it is viewed does not support the
chosen font types.
• Tagged PDF: Exports special tags into the corresponding PDF
tags. Some tags that are exported are table of contents,
hyperlinks, and controls. This option can increase file sizes
significantly.
• Create PDF form - Submit format: Choose the format of
submitting forms from within the PDF file. This setting overrides
the control’s URL property that you set in the document. There is
only one common setting valid for the whole PDF document: PDF
(sends the whole document), FDF (sends the control contents),
HTML, and XML. Most often you will choose the PDF format.
• Export bookmarks: Creates PDF bookmarks for all outline
paragraphs and for all table of contents entries for which you
assigned hyperlinks.
Bookmarks
Select how many heading levels are displayed as bookmarks, if
Export bookmarks is selected on the General page.
Figure 166 shows the pop-up dialog box displayed when you click the
Set open password button on the Security page of the PDF Options
dialog box.
Exporting to XHTML
OOo uses the term “export” for some file operations involving a change
of file type. OOo can export files to XHTML. Other formats may be
made available through extensions.
To export to XHTML, choose File > Export. On the Export dialog,
specify a file name for the exported document, then select the XHTML
in the File format list and click the Export button.
4) Back on the Select address list page, click Next. On the Create
salutation page, deselect the checkbox by This document
should contain a salutation.
The time is 9:50 AM, and Jane is finishing the 30-page paper for
school that is due at 10:00 AM. She looks over the assignment one
more time, and suddenly she realizes that:
• The text must use Arial font instead of Times New Roman.
• The headings must be dark blue and indented.
• The title must appear at the top-right of every page except the
first.
• Even-numbered pages must have a wider right margin, and
odd-numbered pages must have a wider left margin.
Thankfully, Jane used OOo Writer and styles. She makes all the
changes in only two minutes and hands in the paper on time.
Applying styles
Styles can easily be applied by means of the Styles and Formatting
window. However, alternative ways exist to apply certain styles, as
explained in this section.
Select More... at the bottom of the list to open the Styles and
Tip Formatting window.
Note The first method also works for removing manual formatting.
Figure 179: The current page style is displayed on the status bar
If you want to apply a different style, you can either right-click on the
style in the status bar and select a new stype from the pop-up menu, or
you can open the Styles and Formatting window, select the page style
icon at the top of the window (fourth icon), and then double click on
the desired style.
Example: Chapters
A possible scenario: You are writing a book that is divided into
chapters. Each chapter starts with a page style called New Chapter.
The following pages use the Default page style. At the end of each
At some point, you will want to start a new chapter. Follow these steps:
1) Put the cursor at the end of the chapter, on a blank line (empty
paragraph) of its own.
2) Choose Insert > Manual Break. The Insert Break dialog box
appears.
Modifying styles
Writer provides several predefined styles, but you may find that they
do not fit in one way or another your preferences. You can build your
own library of custom styles to use in place of the predefined ones, or
you can modify the existing styles. OOo offers four mechanisms to
modify both both predefined and custom (user-created) styles:
• Update a style from a selection.
• Load or copy styles from another document or template.
• Change a style using the Style dialog box.
• Use AutoUpdate (paragraph and frame styles only).
The first two methods are discussed in “Update Style (from a
selection)” on page 193 and “Load Styles (from a template or
document)” on page 194, while Chapter 7 (Working with Styles)
discusses at length the process of creating a new style.
Using AutoUpdate
On the Organizer page of the Paragraph Style dialog box is a check box
named AutoUpdate (Figure 190). It is present only for paragraph and
frame styles. If this check box is selected, then OOo will apply to the
style itself any modification made manually to a paragraph formatted
with that style.
You may have noticed this behavior already. After you enter a
Note heading using a Heading paragraph style and press Enter, the
next style switches to Text body.
After making these changes, the dialog box should look like
Figure 191.
Sample poem
It is a good idea to test out your new styles and see if you are happy
with them. Typing a poem using the styles we have just defined should
produce the results in Figure 193.
Indent Poem
First, set the Poem style to left alignment:
1) In the Styles and Formatting window, select Poem and right-click
and select Modify.
2) On the Alignment page, select Left.
Set the indentation:
1) Click the Indents & Spacing tab.
2) Under Indent, set the indentation before the text to 5cm (or about
2in).
Done! Click OK, and you should see the text change.
Final result
After all these changes, the poem should look similar to Figure 194.
Note in the figure that a third style has been created for the author of
the poem.
Deleting styles
It is not possible to delete OOo’s predefined styles from a document or
template, even if they are not in use. However, custom styles can be
deleted.
To delete an unwanted style, right-click on it in the Styles and
Formatting window and choose Delete. If the style is in use, the
message shown in Figure 197 appears.
If the style is not in use, the message shown in Figure 198 appears.
1) In the Level list on the left, choose 2. Change the values for
Numbering followed by... at and Aligned at, as shown in Figure
208. You may want to use a different value. This indents the
entire heading but does not affect the way long headings wrap
around (see Figure 209).
Depending on the style you are creating, you will find the following
information on this page:
• Name: present on all the categories—use this field to give a name
to the style you are creating.
• AutoUpdate: only present for paragraph and frame styles. If it is
checked, then Writer will apply any modification made manually
to a paragraph formatted with that style to the style itself.
When using different font sizes in the same paragraph, the line
spacing will be uneven, as Writer automatically calculates the
optimal value. To obtain evenly spaced lines, select Fixed or At
Tip least in the drop-down list and a value that is sufficient to
create a spacing between the lines sufficient to account for the
largest font size used.
The last parameter that can be set in this page is Register-true. If you
have activated the Register-true for the page style in use (refer to
“General settings for the page style” on page 251) then the Reference
style and all the styles hierarchically dependent on it will have the
The Options section of the Text Flow page provides settings to control
what happens when a paragraph does not fit on the bottom of a page:
• Do not split paragraph means that the paragraph is never split
across two pages. If it does not fit on the bottom of one page, the
entire paragraph moves to the top of the next page.
• Keep with next paragraph is appropriate for headings or the
lead-in sentence to a list, to ensure that it is not the last
paragraph on a page.
• Orphan control and Widow control. Widows and orphans are
typographic terms. An orphan is the first line of a paragraph
alone at the bottom of a page or column. A widow is the last line
of a paragraph that appears alone at the top of the next page or
column. Use these options to allow paragraphs to split across
pages or columns but require at least two or more lines to remain
together at the bottom or top of a page or column. You can specify
how many lines must remain together.
Spacing options
Use the Spacing section of the Position page to control the spacing
between individual characters in the paragraph. When selecting an
option other than default in the drop-down menu, use the edit box to
enter the value in points by which you want to expand or condense the
text.
The Pair Kerning option (selected
by default) increases or decreases
the amount of space between certain
pairs of letters to improve the
overall appearance of the text.
Kerning automatically adjusts the Figure 230: Kerning disabled
character spacing for specific letter (left) and enabled (right).
combinations. Kerning is only
available for certain font types and, for printed documents, only works
if your printer supports it.
To define tab stops in your paragraph style, use the page shown in
Figure 231. Here you can choose the type of tab: left, right, centered,
or decimal; the character to be used as a decimal point; and the fill
character—the characters that appear between the end of the text
before the tab and the beginning of the text after the tab. You can also
Figure 233: Options for adding a drop cap to the paragraph style
Drop caps use the same font and have the same properties of the rest
of the paragraph; however, you can easily modify their appearance by
creating a specific character style and using it. For example, you may
This section describes how to create a new page style, explains the
meaning of some of the options in the Page style dialog box, and
illustrates their usage.
Figure 237: The Page page for the Page Style dialog box
In the Layout settings section, choose the desired Page layout from the
four available options. Decide whether the page style being defined
applies to both left and right pages (default) or if instead it should be
applied only to one or the other types. Some considerations:
• If you plan to bind the printed pages using this style like a book,
select a mirrored layout. Use the Format drop-down menu to
determine the page numbering style to apply to this page style.
Columns page
Use this page to create the desired column layout for the page style.
The page is subdivided into three sections: Settings, Width and
Spacing and Separator Line. The Settings section contains thumbnails
of predefined columns settings you can select, as well as a text box
where you can enter the desired number of columns if you need to
create a customized one.
After you select more than one column, the Width and Spacing section
becomes active. If you are not satisfied with the predefined settings
(equally spaced columns), deselect the AutoWidth option and enter
Footnote page
Use this page to adjust the appearance of the footnotes. Keeping the
default setting Not larger than page area, the footnotes area is
calculated automatically on the basis of the number of footnotes. If you
prefer to control manually the maximum space that footnotes can take,
select the Maximum footnote height option and enter the value in
the preferred unit of measurement. Use the second section of the page
to customize the separator between the footnotes and the main area.
Figure 240: Specifying the next style after the first page of a chapter
4) On the Page page, specify a larger left margin for binding, and a
larger top margin to move the chapter title down the page.
Outline page
Use the Outline page to select from eight predefined nested lists. You
can also select one and use it as a starting point for your own style,
customizing the list using the Position page and the Options page, as
described below.
Position page
Use the Position page (Figure 246) to fine tune the indentation and
spacing of the the list item symbol and the text of the list item. This
page is particularly effective when used in combination with the
Options page.
You can adjust the following settings for each individual level or all at
once (to make them all the same). It is generally easier to adjust the
settings in the order given below, instead of the order on the dialog
box. That is, start from the overall indentation for the list elements,
then fix the position of the symbols, and finally adjust the alignment of
the symbols.
• Numbering followed by: the character to follow the numbering
symbol (plus any characters—for example a punctuation mark—
chosen on the Options page to appear after the number). Choose
Options page
Use the Options page to define the style of the outline levels.
If you have more than one list in a document, the second and
subsequent lists with the same style continue their numbering from the
previous list. To restart at 1, place the cursor anywhere in the
paragraph you want numbered 1, right-click, and choose Restart
numbering.
To stop using numbering, press the Numbering On/Off icon on the
Standard toolbar. The final result is illustrated in Figure 232.
Changing the colors of the circle and the arrow improves the contrast
and visibility of the resulting grayscale image.
Caution If the application from which the graphic was copied is closed
before the graphic is pasted into the target, the image stored on
the clipboard could be lost.
Modifying an image
When you insert a new image, you may need to modify it to suit the
document. The placement of the picture relative to the text is
discussed in “Positioning graphics within the text” on page 286. This
section describes the use of the Picture toolbar, resizing, cropping, and
a workaround to rotate a picture.
Writer provides many tools for working with images. These tools are
sufficient for most people’s everyday requirements, However, for
professional results it is generally better to use an image manipulation
program such as GIMP to modify images (for example, to crop, resize,
rotate, and change color values) and then insert the result into OOo.
GIMP is an open-source graphics program that can be downloaded
from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/.
Graphics mode
You can change color images to grayscale by selecting the image and
then selecting Grayscale from the Graphics mode list .
Filters
Table 5provides a short description of the available filters, however the
best way to understand them is to see them in action. Feel free to
experiment with the different filters and filters settings, remembering
that you can undo all the changes by pressing Ctrl+Z or
Alt+Backspace or by selecting Edit > Undo.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 From File
2 Filter
3 Graphics mode
4 Color
5 Transparency
9 19 6 Flip Horizontally
10 20 7 Flip Vertically
18 8 Graphics Properties
11 21 9 Invert
17
12 10 Smooth
22
11 Solarization
13 14 15 16
23 12 Aging
13 Charcoal Sketch
24 14 Relief
15 Mosaic
25
16 Posterize
17 Pop Art
Note: Graphics mode (3) can be Default, Grayscale, 18 Sharpen
Black/White, or Watermark. 19 Remove Noise
20 Red
21 Green
22 Blue
Figure 253. Picture toolbar plus tear-off Graphic 23 Brightness
24 Contrast
Filter toolbar and floating Color toolbar
25 Gamma
Color
Use this toolbar to modify the individual RGB color components of the
image (red, green, blue) as well as the brightness, contrast, and
gamma of the image. If the result is not satisfactory, you can press
Control+Z to restore the default values.
Transparency
Modify the percentage value in the Transparency box on the
Picture toolbar to make the image more transparent. This is
particularly useful when creating a watermark or when wrapping the
image in the background.
Cropping images
When you are only interested in a section of the image for the purpose
of your document, you may wish to crop (cut off) parts of it. The user
interface offered in Writer for cropping an image is not very friendly, so
it may be a better choice to use a graphics package.
Resizing an image
The inserted image might not fit perfectly into the document if it is too
big or too small. In these cases you can use Writer to resize the image.
1) Click the picture, if necessary, to show the green resizing handles.
2) Position the pointer over one of the green resizing handles. The
pointer changes shape giving a graphical representation of the
direction of the resizing.
3) Click and drag to resize the picture.
4) Release the mouse button when satisfied with the new size.
The corner handles resize both the width and the height of the graphic
object simultaneously, while the other four handles only resize one
dimension at a time.
For more accurate resizing, use either the Crop page of the Picture
dialog box (Figure 254) or, for images, the Type page of the Picture
dialog box. On the Crop page you can either adjust the following
settings or use the settings in the Crop section as described on page
279.
• Scale Width and Height: specify in percentages the scaling of
the picture. The size of the image changes accordingly. For a
scaled resizing, both values should be identical.
• Image size: specify the size of the image in your preferred unit of
measurement. The image enlarges or shrinks accordingly.
• Original size button: when clicked, restores the image to its
original size.
In the Type page of the Picture dialog box, select the Relative option
to toggle between percentage and actual dimension. For a scaled
resizing, select the Keep ratio option. As for the Crop page, clicking
on the Original Size button restores the original image size.
Other settings
The Picture dialog box (Figure 254) consists of eight pages. The Crop
page was described on page 279, while the use of the Type and the
Wrap pages is explained in “Positioning graphics within the text” on
page 286. The other pages serve the following purposes:
• Options: use this page to give the picture a descriptive name (as
you want it to appear in the Navigator), display alternative text
when the mouse hovers over the picture, and protect some of the
picture settings from accidental changes. You can also prevent
the picture from being printed by deselecting the corresponding
option.
• Borders: use this page to create borders around the picture. The
Borders dialog box is the same as the one used for defining table
or paragraph borders. You can also add a shadow to the image if
Deleting a picture
To delete a picture:
1) Click on the picture, to show the green resizing handles.
2) Press Delete.
Arranging graphics
Arranging a graphic object means to determine its vertical position
relative to other graphic objects or text. Arranging is only relevant
when objects are overlapping. You can choose between four settings,
plus a special setting for drawing objects:
Bring to Front
Places the graphic on top of any other graphics or text.
Anchoring graphics
You can anchor graphics as a character or to a page, paragraph, or
character. You can also place graphics in a frame and anchor the frame
to a page, paragraph, or character. Which method you choose depends
on what you are trying to achieve.
Here are the ways you can anchor graphics or drawing objects:
To Page
The graphic keeps the same position in relation to the page margins.
It does not move as you add or delete text or other graphics. This
method is useful when the graphic does not need to be visually
associated with a particular piece of text. It is often used when
producing newsletters or other documents that are very layout
intensive, or for placing logos in letterheads.
To Paragraph
The graphic is associated with a paragraph and moves with the
paragraph. It may be placed in the margin or another location. This
method is useful as an alternative to a table for placing icons beside
paragraphs.
Aligning graphics
Once you have established the anchor point of the graphic, you can
decide the position of the graphic relative to this anchor: this is called
aligning the graphics. Choose from six options: three for aligning the
graphic horizontally (left, center, right) and three for aligning the
graphic vertically (top, center, bottom). Horizontal alignment is not
available for images anchored as character.
For finer control of the alignment, use the Position options on the Type
page of the Picture dialog box, shown in Figure 259.
The wrap format is normally selected after the anchoring and the
alignment of the picture have been decided. To set the position of an
image to the the desired wrap format, follow these steps:
1) Select a graphic by clicking on it.
2) Right-click to display the pop-up menu and move the mouse
pointer to Wrap to display the available wrap formats.
Alternatively you can select Format > Wrap from the main
menu.
3) Select the desired wrap format.
To fine tune the wrapping options, open the Picture dialog box and
select the Wrap page. For images you can open this dialog box by
selecting Format > Picture from the main menu or right-click and
select Picture from the pop-up menu. For drawing objects, you can
access the Wrap page by selecting Format > Wrap > Edit in the
main menu or right-click and select Wrap > Edit from the pop-up
menu.
First paragraph
Check this box if you want OOo to start a new paragraph after the
image even if it could still wrap around the image.
In background
This option becomes available if Through Wrap is selected; it
moves the image in the background.
Image anchor
Spacing image to text
In the Category box, you can type any name you want, for
Tip example, Figure. OOo will create a numbering sequence using
that name.
Illustration 1. An example
You may wish to adjust the spacing above and below the
Tip caption text, to fine-tune the appearance of the picture and its
caption.
Use a table
Create a one-column, two-row table. Place the picture in one row and
type the caption in the other row—or use two or more rows for the
caption and other text. This method can be especially useful for
pictures with numbered legends, such as Figure 258 in this chapter.
The value _self for the target frame will work just fine in the vast
Tip majority of occasions. It is therefore not recommended to use
the other choices unless absolutely necessary.
This procedure assumes that the graphic files for the themes
already exist. You may need to import some graphics or to
Note create your own onto your computer if the existing files are
insufficient.
Creating a table
Before you insert a table into a document, it helps to have an idea of
the visual result you want to obtain as well as an estimate of the
number of rows and columns required. Every parameter can be
changed at a later stage; however, thinking ahead can save a large
amount of time as changes to fully formatted tables often require a
significant effort.
Example
In this example we will convert the following text into a table.
Row 1 Column 1; Row 1 Column 2; Row 1 Column 3
Row 2 Column 1; Row 2 Column 2; Row 2 Column 3
Note that, unlike when creating a table with other mechanisms, the
conversion from text to table preserves the paragraph style applied to
the original text.
You can also use the Convert menu to perform the opposite operation;
that is, to transform a table into plain text. This may be useful when
you want to export the table contents into a different program.
To transform a table into text, place the cursor anywhere in the table,
choose Table > Convert > Table to Text in the main menu, pick the
preferred row separator, and click OK to finish.
Default parameters
If you create a table using the Insert Table dialog box or the Table icon
on the Standard toolbar and activate the Heading option, the
following defaults are set:
• The cells in the heading row (or rows) use the Table Heading
paragraph style. In the default template, the text is centered and
set with a bold and italic font.
• The remaining cells use the Table Contents paragraph style,
which, in the default template, is identical to the Default
paragraph style.
• The default table occupies all the space from margin to margin
(text area).
• The default table has thin black borders around each cell (grid).
Figure 272: The Table page of the Table Format dialog box
On this page you can set the alignment of the table, choosing among
the following options:
• Automatic: the default setting for a table.
• Left: aligns the table with the left margin.
• Right: aligns the table with the right margin.
• From Left: lets you specify under Spacing exactly how far from
the left margin the table is placed.
• Center: aligns the table in the middle between the left and right
margins. If the table width is greater than the margin, the table
will extend outside of the margins.
• Manual: lets you specify the distances from both left and right
margins under Spacing.
Right-click on the table and choose Table from the pop-up menu or
choose Table > Table Properties from the menu bar. On the Table
Format dialog box, select the Columns tab.
• Adapt table width: If a table already stretches to the page
margins, it cannot stretch any wider and the Adapt table width
option is not available. If the table is narrower, increasing the
width of a column will increase the width of the whole table.
If the table width already extends pasts the margins with the
Adapt table width option checked, attempting to change a column
width will automatically decrease that column’s size so that the
table will now shrink to the page margins while keeping any other
column sizes intact.
• Adjust columns proportionally results in all columns changing
their widths by the same percentage when one is changed. For
example, if you reduce by half the size of a column, all the other
columns sizes will be halved.
• Remaining space shows how much further the table can expand
before hitting the limit of the margins. This value cannot be
edited and will not be negative in the event that the table width is
already larger than the space between the left and right margins.
• Under Column width, each individual column can be adjusted. If
you have more than six columns, use the arrows at the right and
left to view them all.
Rather than start from the Table Format dialog box, it is often more
efficient to make rough adjustments to a new table using the mouse,
and then fine tune the layout using the Columns page in conjunction
with the Table page of the Table Format dialog box.
Clicking on the Insert Row icon on the Table toolbar inserts one
row below the selected one. Clicking on the Insert Column icon
on the Table toolbar inserts a column after (to the right of) the
Note selected one.
Regardless of how they are inserted, new rows or columns have
the same formatting as the row or column where the cursor was
when the insert command was issued.
When the selected cells have different styles of border the User-
defined area shows the border as a gray line. You can click on
Note the gray line to choose a new border style (first click), leave the
border as it is (second click) or delete the border (third click).
You can also turn table boundaries on and off through Tools >
Options > OpenOffice.org > Appearance. On that page, you
Tip can display or hide boundaries around text, pages headers and
footers, figures, and other parts of a document.
A table heading row can not span two pages, but any other row
can. A one-row table (often used for page layout purposes), if set
Note up with the default of including a heading, will not break across
pages. The cure is to make sure the table is defined without a
heading row.
Number formats
The number format can be set for a whole table or group of cells. For
example, cells can be set to display in a particular currency, to four
decimal places, or in a particular date format.
Number recognition specifies that numbers in a text table are
recognized and formatted as numbers. If number recognition is
selected, numbers are automatically bottom-right aligned. Number
recognition option can be enabled under Tools > Options >
OpenOffice.org Writer > Table.
Select the cells to format, then right-click and choose Number
Format from the pop-up menu. The Number Format dialog box opens
for you to set options for various categories of numerical data.
• In the Category list, select the category you want, such as
currency, date, or text.
• In the Format list, choose a format for the category you just
selected.
• For some categories, such as date, you may wish to change the
language using the Language list while for other numerical
categories the Options section of the dialog box allows you to
customize the appearance.
You will notice that OOo displays the formatting code for the
category and format selected in Format Code section at the
bottom of the dialog box. For example, if you select a date
Tip format such as 31 Dec 1999 the corresponding code is D MMM
YYYY. Advanced users can easily customize this formatting code
as well as create new user-defined codes.
Text rotation within table cells can also be achieved with the use
Note of paragraph styles, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7
(Working with Styles).
You have to select all cells that might be affected by the sorting.
For example, if you select only the cells of one column, the sort
Note affects that column only, while the others remain unchanged. In
such a case, you risk mixing the data of the rows.
Do the following:
1) Click in cell <A1> and press the = key. The Formula bar appears
automatically, near the top of the screen. In the leftmost side of
the bar, you can see the coordinates of the selected cell.
2) Click in cell <B1>. The identifiers of this cell are automatically
displayed in the Formula bar and inserted into cell <A1>.
3) Press the + key.
4) Click on cell <C2>. You can see the final formula = <B1>+<C2>
displayed both in the selected cell and in the Object bar.
5) Press the Enter key or click the green tick (checkmark) on the
Formula Bar.
To display the list of the mathematical functions that you can use
in a table:
Tip 1) Display the Formula toolbar by pressing F2 or by selecting a
blank cell and pressing the = key.
2) Click and hold the Formula f(x) icon.
In our example, this gives the result 9 in the top left cell. For
contiguous cells, you can simply select the cells in the row, column, or
the rectangle of rows and columns. Thus, for example, to add a column
of numbers, do this:
1) Type an equals sign = in an empty cell.
2) Select the cells to be added together—in this case the cells from
A2 to A5. The formula should be something like =<A2:A5>.
Adding a caption
You can easily add a caption to any table. Writer will keep track of all
your captioned tables, automatically number them, and update any
links to them.
To add a caption to a table:
1) Place the cursor in the table.
2) Right-click and choose Caption from the pop-up menu.
Alternatively, the Insert > Caption menu option becomes
available whenever your cursor is inside a table cell.
3) Enter the text for your caption, your category selection, the
numbering style, separator, and position (above or below the
table).
4) Click OK.
OOo will use exactly what you type into the Category and
Note Separator fields, so be sure to include any additional spaces or
punctuation you want to see in your caption.
Cross-referencing a table
You can insert a cross-reference to a captioned table. Clicking on the
cross-reference takes the reader directly to the table.
1) Position the cursor where you want the cross reference.
This technique does not include table and column widths in the
table format. To insert a table with predefined full formatting,
Tip save it as AutoText. See “Using AutoText” in Chapter 3 (Working
with Text) for instructions.
If cells in one table include formulas using data from the other
Note table, those cells will contain an error message: **Expression is
faulty**.
Deleting a table
To delete a table:
1) Click anywhere in the table.
2) Choose Table > Delete > Table from the main menu.
Or:
1) Select from the end of the paragraph before the table to the start
of the paragraph after the table.
2) Press the Delete or the Backspace key.
Copying a table
To copy a table from one part of the document and paste it into another
part:
1) Click anywhere in the table.
2) From the main menu choose Table > Select > Table.
3) Press Control+C or click the Copy icon on the Standard toolbar.
4) Move the cursor to the target position and click on it to fix the
insertion point.
5) Press Control+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar.
Moving a table
To move a table from one part of a document to another part:
1) Click anywhere in the table.
2) From the main menu, choose Table > Select > Table.
3) Press Control+X or click the Cut icon in the Standard toolbar.
(This step removes the contents of the cells but leaves the empty
cells, which must be removed in step 6.)
4) Move the cursor to the target position and click on it to fix the
insertion point.
5) Press Control+V or click the Paste icon in the Standard toolbar.
(This pastes the cells and their contents and formatting.)
6) Return to the original table, click somewhere in it and then
choose Table > Delete > Table from the main menu.
When inserting a table used for layout, you may wish to deselect
the Heading and Border options (see Inserting a new table on
page 305).
Tip To remove the borders from an existing table, right-click on the
table, choose Table from the pop-up menu, select the Borders
tab (see Figure 274 on page 315), and select the icon for no
borders.
Creating a template
You can create your own templates in two ways: from a document, and
using a wizard.
Editing a template
You can edit a template’s styles and content, and then, if you wish, you
can reapply the template’s styles to documents that were created from
that template. (Note that you can only reapply styles. You cannot
reapply content, except for content in headers and footers.)
4) Click the Run BASIC icon, then close the Basic window.
5) Save the document.
Next time when you open this document you will have the
update from template feature back.
Method 1
This method includes any graphics and wording (such as legal notices)
that exists in the new template, as well as including styles. If you don’t
want this material, you need to delete it.
1) Use File > New > Templates and Documents. Choose the
template you want. A new file is created from the template. If the
template has unwanted text or graphics in it, delete them from
this new file.
2) Open the document you want to change. (It opens in a new
window.) Press Control+A to select everything in the document.
Paste into the blank document created in step 1.
3) Update the table of contents, if there is one. Save the file.
Method 2
This method does not include any graphics or text from the new
template, except material in headers and footers; it simply includes
styles from the new template and establishes an association between
the template and the document.
1) Download the Template Changer extension from
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/ and install it as
described on page 341.
2) Close and reopen OpenOffice.org. Now the File > Templates
menu has two new choices: Assign Template (current document)
and Assign Template (folder).
3) Open the document whose template you want to change. Choose
File > Templates > Assign Template (current document).
4) In the Select Template window, find and select the required
template and click Open.
5) Save the document. If you now look in File > Properties, you will
see the new template listed at the bottom of the General page.
Moving a template
To move a template from one template folder to another template
folder:
1) In the Template Management dialog box, double-click the folder
Deleting a template
You cannot delete templates supplied with OOo or installed using the
Extension Manager; you can only delete templates that you have
created. (If you have administrator privileges, you can delete any
template.)
To delete a template:
1) In the Template Management dialog box, double-click the folder
that contains the template that you want to delete. A list of all the
templates contained in that folder appears underneath the folder
name.
2) Click the template that you want to delete.
3) Click the Commands button and choose Delete from the drop-
down menu. A message box appears and asks you to confirm the
deletion. Click Yes.
Importing a template
If the template that you want to use is in a different location, you must
import it into an OOo template folder.
To import a template into a template folder:
1) In the Template Management dialog box, select the folder into
which you want to import the template.
2) Click the Commands button and choose Import Template from
the drop-down menu. A standard file browser window opens.
3) Find and select the template that you want to import, and then
click Open. The file browser window closes and the template
appears in the selected folder.
4) If you want, type a new name for the template, and then press
Enter.
Figure 295: Name the .odb file and the address book.
If the type of label you wish to use is not on the list, use the
Format tab to define a new Brand and Type. This is beyond the
Tip scope of this document, but is relatively simple to implement, if
you know the dimensions of the label.
The last paragraph of the label address block ends with a special
field, Next record:Database.Table (Next record:Points.Sheet1 in
our example), and the Hidden paragraph field MUST be inserted
Caution before this field. This can generally be accomplished by clicking
at the end of the paragraph and then using the Left Arrow key
once to skip back over it.
A clue that you omitted this action is the observation that some
records have been skipped and are missing from the final output.
Printing envelopes
Instead of printing mailing labels, you may wish to print directly onto
envelopes. There are two basic ways to create envelopes, one where
the envelope is embedded within a letter, generally as the first page
(Insert in the Envelope dialog box), and another where the envelope is
an independent document (New Doc. in the dialog box). In each case
the addressing data may be manually entered, for example by copying
and pasting from the letter with which it is associated, or it may
originate within an address data source.
This section assumes the use of an address data source and, for
convenience, a free-standing envelope.
The production of envelopes involves two steps, setup and printing, as
described in this section.
3) The next step is to select the Printer tab (Figure 306), from
where you may choose the printer you intend to use, its setup—
for example, specification of the tray holding envelopes—and
other printer-related options such as envelope orientation and
shifting. You may need to experiment with these settings to
achieve the best results with your printer.
4) You now have the choice of creating the Addressee fields by
dragging and dropping from the data source headings (as
described in “Creating a form letter” on page 353, and in
particular in Figure 297) or using the facilities of the Envelope
tab.
If you prefer dragging and dropping, than click New Doc., drag
your data source headings into the Addressee area on your new
envelope and skip to step 7), otherwise continue with steps 5
and 6.
You can also edit the body of the document. If you started with a blank
document, you can write the whole letter in this step. Click Edit
Document to shrink the wizard to a small window so you can easily
edit the letter.
Tables of contents
Writer’s table of contents feature lets you build an automated table of
contents from the headings in your document. Whenever changes are
made to the text of a heading in the body of the document or the page
on which the heading appears, those changes automatically appear in
the table of contents which it is next updated.
Before you start, make sure that the headings are styled consistently.
For example, you can use the Heading 1 style for chapter titles and the
Heading 2 and Heading 3 styles for chapter subheadings.
This section shows you how to:
• Create a table of contents quickly, using the defaults.
• Customize a table of contents.
You can use any style you want for the different levels to
Note appear in the table of contents; however, for simplicity, most of
this chapter uses the default Heading [x] styles.
The Insert Index/Table dialog box has five pages. Each of them covers
a different aspect of the TOC structure and appearance:
• Use the Index/Table page to set the attributes of the TOC, most
importantly the type of index.
• Use the Entries and Styles pages to format the entries in the TOC.
• Use the Columns page to put the TOC into more than one column.
• Use the Background page to add color or a graphic to the
background of the TOC.
You can display a preview box, located on the left-hand side of each
page, to show as you work how the TOC will look. (If you do not see the
preview box, select the Preview option in the lower right-hand corner
of the dialog box.) The illustrations in this chapter show the dialog box
as it appears with the preview box hidden.
After making all your changes, click OK to apply them. If you need to
revert to the default settings, click the Reset button.
You can only change the type of index when you first create it.
Note Once you define an index type (for example, make a table of
contents) you cannot change the type.
Entries page
Use the Entries page to define and format the entries in the TOC. Each
outline level can be styled independently from the other levels by
adding and deleting elements.
Adding elements
To add an element to the Structure line:
1) Click in the white field where you want to insert the element.
2) Click one of the five buttons just below the Structure line. (For
example, to add a tab, click the Tab stop button.) A button
representing the new element appears on the Structure line.
3) To add custom text, such as the word Chapter, type the text in the
white field.
Changing elements
To change an element in the Structure line, click the button
representing that element and then click the element that you want to
substitute in the row of buttons just below the Structure line. For
example, to change a chapter number to a tab stop, click the E#
button on the Structure line (it shows then as being pressed) and then
click the Tab stop button in the row of available elements.
Deleting elements
To delete an element from the Structure line, click the button
representing that element and then press the Delete key on your
keyboard. For example, to delete a tab stop, click the T button and
then press the Delete key.
Hyperlinking an entry
To change the default Structure line so that the chapter number and
the entry text form a hyperlink, follow these steps:
1) On the Structure line, place the cursor in the white field to the
left of the E# button.
2) Click the Hyperlink button. An LS button, representing the start
of the hyperlink, appears on the Structure line.
3) On the Structure line, place the cursor in the white field to the
right of the E button.
4) Click the Hyperlink button again. An LE button, representing the
end of the hyperlink, appears on the Structure line.
Styles page
Use the Styles page to change which paragraph style is assigned to
each level in the table of contents. In most cases, the best strategy is to
keep the assigned styles but change their settings as needed to make
the TOC appear the way you want.
To apply a custom paragraph style to an outline level:
1) In the Levels list box, select the outline level.
2) In the Paragraph Styles list box, click the desired paragraph style.
3) Click the < button to apply the selected paragraph style to the
selected outline level.
The style assigned to each level appears in square brackets in the
Levels list.
Background page
Use the Background page to add color or a graphic to the background
of the TOC. Refer to Chapter 4 (Formatting Pages) for details on
adding backgrounds to document elements.
You can also access the Index/Table dialog box from the Navigator
(Figure 330).
1) Open the Navigator (press F5).
2) Click the + sign next to Indexes.
3) Right-click on the desired index and choose Index > Edit.
Alphabetic indexes
An alphabetical index (referred to as an index) is a list of keywords or
phrases used throughout a document that, if listed in order with page
numbers, may help the reader find information quickly. Generally an
index is found in the back of a book or document.
This section describes how to:
• Add index entries.
• Create an alphabetic index quickly.
• Customize the display of index entries.
• Customize the appearance of the index.
• View and edit existing index entries.
You can also open the Insert Index Entry dialog box by clicking
Tip the Entry icon on the Insert toolbar, as shown in Figure 332.
Index/Table page
Use the Index/Table page to set the basic attributes of the index.
1) To give the Index a different title, type it in the Title field. To
delete the title, clear the Title field.
Entries page
Use the Entries page to set exactly how and what will be displayed for
each of the entries. The page is similar to Figure 334.
Adding elements
To add an element to the Structure line:
1) Place the cursor in the white field to the left of where you want to
insert the element.
2) Click one of the buttons below the Structure line. (For example, to
add a tab stop, click the Tab stop button.) A button representing
the new element appears on the Structure line.
Deleting elements
To delete an element from the Structure line, click the button that
represents that element and then press the Delete key on your
keyboard. For example, to delete a tab stop, click the T button and
then press the Delete key.
Formatting entries
Apply additional formatting using the options in the Format section.
• Alphabetical delimiter. This will display, as a means of
separating index entries, the first letter of all the subsequent
index entries. For example:
A
apple, 4
author, 10
B
break, 2
bus, 4
• Key separated by commas. Arranges the entries in the index on
the same line but separated by commas.
Columns page
Use the Columns page (Figure 335) to change the number of columns
for the index.
Maintaining an index
To modify the appearance of an index:
1) Click anywhere in the index and then right-click.
2) From the pop-up menu, choose Edit Index/Table. The Insert
Index/Table dialog box opens and you can edit and save the index
using the five tabs described in the previous section.
To update or delete an index, follow the process described in the
sections “Updating a table of contents” and “Deleting a table of
contents” on page 392.
Bibliographies
A bibliography is useful for displaying references used throughout a
document. These references are either stored in a bibliographic
database or within the document itself.
This section shows you how to:
• Create a bibliographic database; add and maintain entries.
• Add a reference into a document.
• Format the bibliography.
• Update and edit an existing bibliography.
For most of this section, the database table used is the sample one that
comes with Writer. For information on creating a new table in the
bibliographic database, see Chapter 8 (Getting Started with Base) in
the Getting Started guide.
Entries page
The structure of this page is similar to that for tables of contents and
indexes (see Figure 349).
You can define how the entry will appear based on the Type of the
entry, or simply apply the same format to all entries by selecting the
All button.
The Structure of the entry is based on the fields available in the
bibliographic database. The ones shown by default are:
• Au – Author
• Ti – Title
• Ye - Year
To determine how entries are sorted, modify the Sort by options. To
sort by the sequence that entries appear in the text, choose Document
position. To sort alphanumerically, choose Content. Use Sort keys to
group similar references.
Now when you generate the bibliography, the list will look something
like the one shown in Figure 353.
Use the same document template for the master document and
its subdocuments. When you modify or create a style, add it to
the document template, and then reload the styles from the
Tip template into the master document and the subdocuments.
This way the subdocuments will look the same when they are
loaded into the master document as they do when viewed as
individual files.
Figure 354. The Navigator for a text document (left) and for
a Master document (right)
How to do it:
1) Click File > New > Master Document.
2) Use the Navigator to insert new documents or existing files into
the master document, as described in “Step 5. Insert the
subdocuments into the master document” on page 428.
2 However, the method does not work in some situations. See “Problem solving” on
3) Because the Text section contains the title page and other
material you have already inserted, highlight it and click the
Move Up icon to move it to the top of the list.
4) Highlight the subdocument you just inserted (Chapter 6), then
long-click on the Insert icon and click File to insert the first
subdocument; in this example, Preface. Chapter 6 remains
highlighted. Repeat with Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and so on until all
the subdocuments have been added to the list. The Navigator will
now look something like Figure 359. Save the master document
again.
6) Check whether the first page of the master document has the
correct page style. If not, change it to the correct style (Title page
in this example).
Scroll to the place where the first subdocument begins. Check
whether its page style is correct, and change it if necessary
(Front matter first page in this example).
The first subdocument (Figure 361) has a blank paragraph at the
top of the page; this was inserted as part of the manual page
break. Set this paragraph to the PageBreak style you created in
Step 2.
Setting references
1) Click Insert > Cross-reference.
2) On the Cross-references tab of the Fields dialog box, click Set
Reference in the Type list. The Selection list shows any
references that have been defined.
You can leave this page open while you set many headings as
references.
3) Click in the document and highlight the text of the first heading
to be used as a target for a cross-reference. Click on the Fields
dialog box. The text of the heading will appear in the Value box in
the lower right of the dialog box. In the Name box, type some text
by which you can identify this heading.
4) Click Insert. The text you typed in the Name box now appears in
the Selection list.
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 as often as required.
5) The Edit Links dialog (Figure 372) shows all the linked files.
Select all the files in the Source file list and click Break Link.
This step embeds (includes) the contents of all the subdocuments
into one single file (but with each subdocument remaining in a
separate section) and removes the write protection on the
sections.
The Help does not mention steps 4 and 5 above, giving only
the step for removing the sections. If you have no hidden
sections, that technique works fine and is faster; however, if
Tip you want to break the links but retain some or all of the
sections (particularly hidden sections), then the method
described in this chapter is safer.
Problem solving
Some combinations of choices do not work together, and some
techniques that affect master documents are not at all obvious. This
section describes some problems and what to do about them.
The solution
The cure for this problem is as follows:
1) Use File > Templates > Edit to open the template used for the
master document and its subdocuments.
The solution
1) Remove the landscape pages from the subdocument and put them
in a separate document. Note that if the landscape pages are in
the middle of the original subdocument, you will end up with at
least three documents: (a) the portion of the subdocument before
the landscape pages, (b) the landscape pages themselves, and (c)
the portion of the subdocument after the landscape pages.
2) Insert documents (a), (b), and (c) individually into the master
The solution
To avoid this problem but keep pictures positioned precisely on a
particular page, anchor the pictures as follows:
1) Right-click on the picture and choose Picture from the pop-up
menu.
2) On the Type tab of the Picture dialog box (Figure 374), set the
anchor to To character or To paragraph.
3) Under Position, choose suitable horizontal and vertical references
to the page.
The solution
You need to explicitly set the first list item to restart numbering at 1.
However, if you right-click on the paragraph and choose Restart
numbering, the setting is not saved when the file is saved. (This works
for other lists in a document, but not the first.)
The Cross-references page of the Fields dialog box (Figure 383) lists
some items, such as headings, numbered paragraphs, and bookmarks.
If figure captions, table captions, user-defined number range variables,
and some other items have been defined in a document, that type also
Inserting cross-references
To insert a cross-reference to a heading, figure, or other item shown on
the Cross-references page:
1) In your document, place the cursor where you want the cross-
reference to appear.
2) If the Fields dialog box is not open, choose Insert > Cross
Reference. On the Cross-references page (Figure 383), in the
Type list, click the type of item you are referencing (for example,
Heading or Figure).
3) You can leave this page open while you insert many cross-
references.
4) Click on the required item in the Selection list, which shows both
automatically created entries (for example Headings) as well as
user-defined references (for example bookmarks).
5) In the Insert reference to list, choose the type of reference
required. The choices vary with the item being referenced.
For headings, usually you will choose Reference (to insert the
full text of the heading) or Page (to insert the number of the page
the heading is on).
For figures, you will usually choose Category and Number (to
insert the word “Figure” and its number), Reference (to insert
the word “Figure” with its number and the full text of the
Available formats
For all the types of reference, you can select one of the following
formats:
• Page: the page number of the target
• Chapter: the number of the chapter where the referenced target
is located.
• Reference: the full text set as reference.
• Above/Below: Inserts the words above or below depending on the
position of the field relative to the referenced target.
• As Page Style: similar to Page, this inserts the page number
where the reference is, but using the formatting specified in the
page style. This is very useful when putting a reference to a page
in the front matter where roman numerals are usually employed.
If you select Headings or Numbered Paragraphs as type, the following
two additional options become available:
• Number (no context): inserts only the number of the heading or of
the numbered paragraph. For example, if referencing a numbered
item 2.4, it inserts 4.
• Number (full context): inserts the the full number including
higher hierarchical levels. For example, if referencing a
numbered item 2.4, the full numbering (2.4) is inserted.
Finally, for objects inserted with captions such as a table or a figure,
you can choose:
• Category and Number: inserts both the category and number of
the referenced object (for example, Figure 6). This is generally
the most used formatting for figures and tables.
• Caption Text: inserts the full caption of the referenced object. For
example, Figure 6: This is an example figure.
• Numbering: inserts the sequential number of the referenced
object, without the category (for example, if referencing Table 2,
the field will contain only the number 2).
Using bookmarks
Bookmarks are listed in the Navigator and can be accessed directly
from there with a single mouse click. In HTML documents, bookmarks
are converted to anchors that you can jump to using a hyperlink.
1) Select the text you want to bookmark. Choose Insert >
Bookmark.
2) On the Insert Bookmark dialog box, the larger box lists any
previously defined bookmarks. Type a name for this bookmark in
the top box. Click OK.
Setting references
1) Choose Insert > Cross reference.
2) On the Cross-references page of the Fields dialog box (Figure
385), select Set Reference in the Type list. The Selection list
shows any references that have been defined.
You can leave this page open while you set many items as
references.
• To include the chapter number with the page number, position the
cursor just before the Page field you inserted. Choose Insert >
Fields > Other. On the Document page of the Fields dialog box,
select Chapter in the Type column and Chapter number
without separator in the Format column. Click Insert.
Go to the header or footer where you inserted this field, type the
character you want to appear between the chapter number and
the page number—for example, a period or a dash.
The table of contents will not automatically pick up these chapter
numbers, so you will need to make a change on the Indexes and
Tables menu item, as described in Chapter 12 (Creating Tables of
Conditional text
With conditional text, you can have two alternative texts (a word,
phrase, or sentence). One text will be displayed and printed if the
condition you specify is met, and the other will be displayed and
printed if the condition is not met. You cannot include graphics or edit
the text except in the field dialog (not in the body of the document).
You also cannot format part of the text (for example, bolding one word
but not the others), but you can format the field to affect all of the field
contents (for example, bolding all of the words). You cannot include a
cross-reference or other field in the text.
Hidden paragraphs
Hidden paragraphs are like any other paragraphs, but you can specify
a condition under which the paragraph is not displayed or printed. A
blank paragraph can also be hidden—for example, if a database field
has no content for the current record. This is very useful when
merging an address into a letter: if you allow two lines for the street
address and the database record uses only one line, you can prevent
the blank line from appearing in your document. You can include
graphics, edit the text in the body of the document, format any part of
the text, and include fields.
Hidden sections
Hidden sections are like hidden paragraphs, but they can include more
than one paragraph—for example, a heading plus one or more
paragraphs. However, a section cannot contain less than a paragraph,
so you cannot use this method for single words or phrases. The
contents of a hidden section behave just like the contents of any other
part of the document, but you can specify a condition under which the
section is not displayed or printed. In addition, you can password
protect a section.
DocInformation fields
“Using document properties to hold information that changes” on page
446 described how to set up a custom document property. You can use
that document property as the variable in your condition statement, or
you can create another document property field specifically for
conditions.
5) A small gray mark should be visible where you inserted the field.
Hover the mouse pointer over this mark and you will see the field
formula ProLite = Lite. We will come back to this field later.
Conditional text
First, let us set up some conditional text that will insert the words
Great Product Lite into the Lite version and Great Product Pro into
the Pro version of the manual. You would use this field whenever you
want to mention the name of the product.
1) Place the cursor where you want one of these phrases to appear.
(You can move or delete it later, if you wish.)
2) Open the Fields dialog box by clicking Insert > Fields > Other,
select the Functions page, and select Conditional text in the
Type list.
3) As shown in Figure 389, type ProLite EQ "Lite" in the Condition
box, Great Product Lite in the Then box, and Great Product
Pro in the Else box.
4) Click Insert to insert the field, then click Close. You should see
Great Product Lite in your text.
If you want to insert this field into your text in many places (as
you probably would for a product name), create an AutoText
Tip entry for it. See “Using AutoText to insert often-used fields” on
page 449 for instructions.
Hidden paragraphs
To enable hidden paragraphs, remove the check mark from
View > Hidden Paragraphs. When this option is selected,
Tip any hidden paragraph you create will always be hidden,
whether its condition is true or not.
Hidden sections
A conditional section is hidden if the condition is true. To create a
conditional section:
1) Select the text that you want to be included in the conditional
section. (You can edit this text later, just as you can edit any other
text.)
2) Choose Insert > Section. On the Insert Section dialog box
(Figure 391), select Hide and enter the condition in the with
Condition box. You can also give the section a name, if you wish
(strongly recommended, so you can find it again easily if you have
several sections in your document).
3) Click Insert to insert the section into your document.
To show a hidden section so you can edit it:
1) Choose Format > Sections.
2) On the Edit Sections dialog box (similar to the Insert Section
dialog box), select the section from the list.
3) Deselect Hide, and then click OK. You can now edit the contents
of the section. Afterwards, you can choose Format > Sections
again and select Hide to hide the section again.
Conditional text and hidden text can only be edited in the Edit
Tip Fields dialog box.
Create a document
There is nothing special to be done when creating a document to use
as a form. Create a new Writer document with File > New > Text
document.
When you insert a group box, list box, or combo box, a wizard
is launched to guide you through the setup. If you prefer not to
Note run the wizard, click the Wizards On/Off button on the
Form Controls toolbar.
Configure controls
After inserting the controls, you need to configure them to look and
behave as you want. Right-click on a form control within your
document and select Control from the pop-up (context) menu to open
the Properties dialog box for the selected control. Double-clicking on a
form control also opens this dialog box.
The Properties dialog box has three pages: General, Data, and Events.
For simple forms, only the General page is of any interest. On this page
you can set the look and feel of the control. See “Configure form
controls” on page 487 and “Form control formatting options” on page
499 for more information, and the descriptions in the Help for details.
Configuration for use with a database is discussed in “Creating a form
for data entry” on page 494.
The fields on this dialog box vary with the type of control. For example:
• Some controls have visible labels, such as Push Button and Option
Button. The label text can be set.
• The List Box contains a list of options to choose from. Set these in
the List entries box.
Notice the scroll bar in this dialog box. You can use the scroll bar or
enlarge the dialog box to see additional fields.
2) If the tools are not active, click the Design Mode On/Off
button to activate them.
3) Click the Text Box button , then click in the document and,
with the left mouse button held down, drag the shape of the
Name text box to approximately the size you want.
b) On the next page, select the option No, one particular field is
not going to be selected. Click Next>>.
6) Now create the list box. On the Form Controls toolbar, click the
Wizards On/Off button to turn wizards off. Click the List Box
button and draw a list box by Favourite Shape: in the
document. This will just be an empty pane for now.
3) Click on the first Check Box. The Properties dialog box stays open
but changes to show the properties for the check box.
4) Change the Label fieldfrom Check Box to Circle and press Enter.
The cursor moves to Label Field and the label on the check box
in the document changes immediately.
7) Turn design mode off and close the two Controls toolbars.
You have now completed the form, which should look something like
Figure 409.
Finishing touches
The form is complete, but you are free to make further changes to the
document. If you were sending this out to other people to complete,
you would probably want to make the document read-only. The effect
would be that users would be able to fill in the form but not to make
any other changes to the document.
To make the document read-only, select Tools > Options >
OpenOffice.org > Security > Open this document in read-only
mode.
Creating a database
Chapter 8 (Getting Started with Base) in the Getting Started guide
covers in more detail how to create a database. Here we give a short
guide to creating a very simple database with OOo Base.
1) Select File > New > Database to start the Database Wizard
(Figure 410).
2) Select Create a new database and click Next.
3) On the next page, select Yes, register the database for me and
Open the database for editing. Registering the database just
means that it can be accessed from other OOo components such
as Writer and Calc. You need to do this if you want to link your
forms into it.
4) Click Finish and save your new database, giving it a name.
Unlike creating other documents in OOo, databases must be
saved when you first create them.
Setting up the Primary Key field with Auto Value set to Yes is
an important step. If this is not done, the form you create later
Tip will be much trickier to use and may generate errors for the
user. Make sure you get this step right!
5) Click the Text Box button . Click in the document and, holding
down the left mouse button, drag the mouse to create a text box
for the first form field (for example, Name, if you are linking to
the database created above).
6) Click the Text Box button again and drag the mouse to draw
another field. Additional fields, of any type, can be added in the
same way (click and drag).
So far you have followed the same steps you used before when you
created your first form. Now you link your form with the data source
you registered.
1) Click the Form button in the Form Controls toolbar, or right-
click on any of the fields you inserted and select Form, to open
the Form Properties dialog box.
2) In the Form Properties dialog box, click on the Data tab.
• Set Data Source to be the data source you registered.
• Set Content Type to be Table.
• Set Content to be the name of the table you want to access.
• Close the dialog box.
Read-only documents
Having created your form, you want whoever is using it to be able to
access the information stored in the database, or complete the form,
without changing the layout. To do this, make the document read-only
by selecting Tools > Options > OpenOffice.org > Security> Open
this document in read only mode.
XForms
XForms are a new type of web form, developed by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). OpenOffice.org 3 supports the XForms 1.0 open
standard for creating web forms with XML.
In OpenOffice.org, an XForms document is a special type of Writer
document. XForms use the same controls as the ordinary forms
described in this chapter.
After you create and save an XForms document, you can open the
document, fill out the form, and submit the changes to a server.
A detailed discussion of XForms is beyond the scope of this chapter, as
it is related more to databases than word processing. A good tutorial
introduction is J. David Eisenberg’s XForms and OpenDocument in
OpenOffice.org, available from
http://opendocument.xml.org/files/xforms_ooo_06_10_25.pdf and
http://books.evc-cit.info/xforms_ooo_06_08_15.odt. Another good
resource is Valden Longhurst’s Using XForms and the OpenDocument
format in OpenOffice.org and StarOffice,
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Using_XForms
Customizing toolbars
You can customize toolbars in several ways, including choosing which
icons are visible and locking the position of a docked toolbar, as
described in Chapter 1 (Introducing Writer), and adding or deleting
icons (commands) in the list of those available on a toolbar. You can
also create new toolbars. This section describes how to create new
toolbars and add or delete icons on existing ones.
To get to the toolbar customization dialog box, do any of the following:
• On the toolbar, click the arrow at the end of the toolbar and
choose Customize Toolbar.
• Choose View > Toolbars > Customize from the menu bar.
• Choose Tools > Customize from the menu bar and go to the
Toolbars page.
The new toolbar now appears on the list of toolbars in the Customize
dialog box. After creating a new toolbar, you need to add some
commands to it, as described above.
To adapt shortcut keys to your needs, use the Customize dialog box, as
described below.
1) Choose Tools > Customize > Keyboard. The Customize dialog
box opens.
2) To have the shortcut key assignment available in all components
of OpenOffice.org, select the OpenOffice.org button.
All existing shortcut keys for the currently selected Function are
listed in the Keys selection box. If the Keys list is empty, it
indicates that the chosen key combination is free for use. If it
were not, and you wanted to reassign a shortcut key
Note combination that is already in use, you must first delete the
existing key.
Shortcut keys that are greyed-out in the listing on the Customize
dialog box, such as F1 and F10, are not available for
reassignment.
Installing extensions
To install an extension, follow these steps:
1) Download an extension and save it anywhere on your computer.
2) In OOo, select Tools > Extension Manager from the menu bar.
In the Extension Manager dialog box, click Add.
To get extensions that are listed in the repository, you can open
the Extension Manager and click the Get more extensions
Tip here link. You do not need to download them separately as in
step 1 above.
Using extensions
This section describes a few of the more important and popular
extensions to Writer. All are available from the OOo extensions
repository. In each case, you need to first install the extension as
described in the previous section.
Template Changer
Adds two new items to the File > Templates menu that allow you to
assign a new template to the current document or to a folder of
documents. All styles and formatting will be loaded from that template
and the document will behave as it was created using that template.
Open source.
Writer’s Tools
A set of utilities designed to help OpenOffice.org users perform a wide
range of tasks. Using Writer’s Tools, you can back up documents, look
up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep
tabs on document statistics. Open source.
Interrupting macros
To terminate a macro that is currently running, press Shift+Ctrl+Q.
Index 531
images load/save options 50
adding from file 271 loading styles 194
linking 272 locale settings 66
resizing 280 logical expressions 461
scanned 274
wrapping text around 290
M
indent distance 57 Mac OS X 12
indents 82 Macintosh 72
index macro
capitalizing entries 398 linking to a form control 497
creating 393 macros
customizing 396 assigning to events 517
key 395, 398 mail merge
sorting entries 398 Adjust Layout dialog 375
index entries 393 Create Salutation dialog 374
customizing 395, 398 edit saved file 362
editing 402 envelopes 367
Index Link character style 389 Mail Merge dialog 357
Insert Bookmark dialog box 434, 455 Mail Merge dialog box 367
Insert Index Entry dialog 395 Match Fields dialog 373
Insert Index/Table dialog box 383 New Address Block dialog box 372
Insert Picture dialog 271 overview 349
Insert Section dialog box 136, 467 personalize documents 377
interface, Writer 15 save, print or send 378
Internet Link character style 389 Select Address Block dialog box 371
Select Address List dialog box 370
K Mail Merge dialog box 357, 367
KDE 12, 14 mail merge e-mail options 65
KDocker 14 Mail Merge Wizard
keyboard shortcuts e-mailing Writer document 184
assigning 512, 522 mailing labels 358
customizing 512 marginal notes 133
loading from a file 517 margins, changing 121
resetting to default values 517 master document
saving to a file 517 anchoring pictures to page 442
select nonconsecutive items 72 bibliography 432
keyboard shortcuts for fields 459 breaking links 438
changing styles 432
L chapter reference in header 439
label printing 174 combining several documents 422
labels creating 421
printing 174 creating one file 437
landscape page in portrait document cross-referencing between
120 subdocuments 433
landscape pages 119, 161 editing 432
language settings 66 editing subdocuments 433
Language Tool extension 92 exporting to .odt file 437
line numbering 100 index 432
lines 85 landscape pages in portrait document
linking frames 131 441
Index 533
digital rights management (DRM) 181 Linux 14
encrypt 181 Windows 13
EPS images 178
export documents to 176
R
image compression and resolution 178 read-only forms 498
initial view selection 179 recording changes 101, 102
pages to export 177 redlines 102
password-protect 182 redo 34
security settings 181 regular expressions 76
tagged 178 rejecting changes 103
user interface settings 179 relative font size 234
PDF import 520 replacement table (font) 46
PDF Options dialog 177 reverse order printing 61
pictures revision marks 102
adding 302 rulers 20, 82
adding from file 271 rulers, changing margins 122
linking 272 S
resizing 280
Save 32
transparency 278
scaling factor 41
wrapping text around 290
scanner 274
placeholder field 468
screen font antialiasing 41
preview of fonts 42
searching in Japanese 67
Print dialog box 166
section
print file directly 166
boundaries 49
print options 43, 60
conditional 466
printer metrics 63
creating 136
Printer Options dialog 167
deleting 143
printer settings 51
editing the format 144
printer warnings 43
hidden 466
printing
hiding 139
black and white on color printer 168
linking 137
book preview 169
links, updating 144
booklet 170
naming 137
brochure 170
password-protecting 138
choosing what to print 166
saving 142
default settings 168
uses of 136
envelopes 171
write-protecting 138
grayscale on color printer 169
security 31
labels 174
security options 47
previewing 169
Select Address Block dialog box 371
print options 167
Select Address List dialog 371
printer selection 166
Select Address List dialog box 370
Professional Template Pack extension
selecting text 71
519
selection clipboard 42
Properties dialog 477
send document as e-mail 183
Properties dialog box 446
shared extension 519
protecting a document 102
shortcut keys 522
Q sideheads 133
Quickstarter size optimization 52
Index 535
exporting 347 updating fields 459
Extension Manager 341 URL Recognition 108
folders 345 User Data options 37
importing 346 user-defined variable field 452
moving 345 user-specific settings 51
organizing 345
setting a default 342
V
update document styles from 340 variables 462
Template Changer extension 519 view options 40
text boundaries 49 View options for Writer 57
text flow in tables 319 W
text size in user interface 41
What’s This? help 33
text wrapping 290
Windows 12
theme, Gallery 302
wizard
thesaurus 95
Address Data Source 350
toolbars 16
Mail Merge 368
adding commands 509
word completion 99
choosing icons for commands 509
word count 112
creating 512
workspace 15
tooltips 33, 38
wrap off 290
tracking changes 101, 102
wrap through 295
transparency 278
wrapping text around graphics 290
two-digit years 39
U X
XForms 500
undo 34
XML 52
unsaved changes flag 21
update fields and charts automatically Y
57 year (two digits) 39
update links when loading 56